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Health news

17/12/2004 Free prescription

The topic of ensuring the people who have privileges is one of the hottest now. People, who call for consultation, in their majority, touch the problem concerning free medicines. The specialists of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of Russia respond to the most urgent ones.

I’m legalizing my disablement. When will I have the right to get my free medicines?

By the time your monthly payments have been fixed you’ll get your money. From this very moment you’ll have the right to get free medicines you’re prescribed.

Where can I get the information about the additional drug ensuring?

- first of all from your physician,

- in the insurance medical organization

- in the local fund of Obligatory Medical Insurance.

Can I change the unnecessary medicines for money?

You can legalize it till the 1st of October 2005 year. Then, beginning with the 1st of January 2006 year, your monthly money will be paid in full measure. Speaking about the year 2005 this right isn’t provided.

Which medicines can one get having these free prescriptions?

There are 300 international medicines in the very list.

Where can I get acquainted with the list of the medicines?

Your physician ought to tell you about all these as well as the medical insuring agent. Besides the list is published on the official site of our “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” newspaper - www.rg.ru.

What shall I to do, if the necessary drug isn’t included in the list? Can I still get it for free?

If the remedy isn’t included into the list, but it’s undoubtedly necessary to the patient, the physician can prescribe it, but only after he considers the expert commission of the out-patients’ clinic.

Is the quantity of the drug limited?

Every time the dose is fixed by the physician, who takes into consideration the diagnosis and the state of the patient.

They say there will be a tough control over the free drugs. Should one show his documents together with the prescription?

No. Nothing of the kind is demanded.

Will my daughter or my neighbor be able to get my drugs? It’s very hard for me to walk.

Every person whom you give your prescription will have the right to get the remedy you need.

Will the drugs present constantly in the drug-store?

The system provides creating of the reserve of medicines.

If there’s no remedy I need, can they give me another one?

You’ll be offered a remedy, which is identical to its pharmacological effect.

Where can I turn, if they refuse to give the necessary drug for free?

In this case you should turn to in the insurance medical organization or to the local fund of Obligatory Medical Insurance.

I’m going to leave the town for several months. Is it possible to get the remedy for a longer period?

No. The physician must control your state periodically. That’s why you must attend your physician regularly, following his advices.

Can a person bring a suit against the drug-store for taking money for “Free prescription”?

Yes. You can also bring a suit the medical insurance agent.

Does it mean that all the remedies will be given with the presence of the prescription?

Yes, those remedies of no prescribed supply, which are in the list, will be given with the presence of the prescription.

Irina Nevinnaya

Full text is available only in the Russian version.

16/12/2004 Time to ill will be limited.Five days – in hospital, the rest – at home

As it was written in a few newspapers, Mikhail Zurabov, the Minister of Health and Social Development, announced it on the recent meeting in Yekaterinburg.

Naturally the news shocked both medical men and common people. Nevertheless the Minister managed to get acquainted with the published news, while the scandal was growing. At any rate on the press conference in the capital of Habarovsky region he claimed rather harshly: “I’ve never said anything of the kind”. So, what’s the essence of the matter?
Our reformers are in the habit of referring to abroad experience. Though it’s much more essential that there’s even no hint on true, for example, ambulance aid. To be treated, especially nursed back to health, at home you’ll have pay, pay and again pay – for massage, for tests and many other medical manipulations.

And now the most essential thing: may be from the economic point of view, to be more exact, from the point of view of the economist one can fix five days to cure everything. But from the medical point of view…How could one cure anybody from heart attack or stroke? Must a person down with pneumonia, who is fevering, be sent home? This list is everlasting.

“The minister was wrongly understood”, the press centre of the Ministry of Health and Social Development contradicted to the harsh commentaries of press. Mikhail Zurabov himself tried once again to explain the situation: in high developed countries staying in hospitals from two to seven days is a norm. But it is only impossible when the hospitals are supplied with effective and expensive equipment.

In Russia, where the hospitals aren’t well supplied, we spend for treatment from 14 to 15 days. People are examined and prepared for the operations rather slowly, more than that the post operating period is too prolonged. Here, I believe, none can contradict the Minister.

Zurabov declared that there’s a working out of a program, one of the main aims of which is “the supplement of hospitals with effective equipment”. And only then, according to him, the change into the “abroad” norms is possible. The first thing that is going to be made is the system of institutions for patients’ recovering after operations and the widening out-patients aid – prophylaxis, diagnostics and treatment with the usage of effective medicines and drugs.

The modernization is necessary; we can’t go on in such a way. But the fact that embarrasses is that the initiative comes to light absolutely unexpectedly for medical men.

Irina Krasnopolskaya

Full text is available only in the Russian version.

16/12/2004 One won’t have to verify his disablement again

RIA “News” informs that every one who verified the disablement before the January the 1st wouldn’t have to do it once again. The Prime-Minister of Russia Mikhail Fradkov declared it, during the social problems committee meeting.

Fradkov claimed: “Everything will be in power, concerning the disablement. I say it now to avoid the queues and disturbances”.

“A lot of aged people are trying to verify their rights for indemnity, there must not be any disturbance”.

According to him, the way of verifying disablement will change after the 1st of January. We’ll just mention that, according to all available information the Ministry of Health can provide, there are about 11 million 400 thousand disabled in Russia. What’s more, this sum is increasing annually on more than 1 million 200 thousand people; furthermore 95 – 97 per cent of them will forever remain disabled.

11/12/2004 The new system of privileges created a lot of problems to medical men

The changes in the system of privileges led to the fact that the medical staff in some cities has to work significantly more than they used to. On the threshold of January, when the law, concerning replacing privileges for money, will attain its attachment, the pensioners are in a hurry to verify their disablement, which will give them the right for greater monthly payments. As the result, huge queues of pensioners lined up the out patients’ clinics and social security institutions.

We should emphasize the fact that the chiefs of public health service time and again warned their subordinates about these various “by-effects” of the law. But not all of the subordinates turned out to be ready for these.

10/12/2004 The association of Medical Informational Ensuring

The Association of Medical Informational Ensuring (AMIE) was established on November 24, 2004 year in Moscow. When making a new association at least three goals are pursued: forming of the communicative environment among the members of the association, realization of the ideas, shared by the members of the association, the defense of the rights of the members of the very association.

The mission of the newborn association coincides with the realization of the idea of unified informational and informative environment of the public health service. Obviously, this structure will be only then effective, when all the employees of all the levels of public health service sense that the informational ensuring will do good, when modern informational technologies become integral part of their everyday lives. That’s why the AMIE must promote the application of these high technologies far and wide: from the medical attendant’s place to the very Ministry. Another important aspect is the increase of the working up level in the area of the informational-communicative technologies (ICT). Here AMIE can establish the norm of the quality of ICT-Systems, without observing which the very system will go bankrupt.

AMIE is supposed to help a doctor in treating his patients, a manager of a medical institution in his managerial activity, a headmaster of public health service in making up a system of helping people, forming healthy way of living, etc.

It means that the development of MIE is possible only in cooperation of professionals, connecting with public health service and of professionals, connecting with ICT. In this connection the AMIE serves as a kind of club, where these professionals can meet, discuss the problems and work out some solutions to them.

The formation of the modern public health service is impossible without it.

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